“This wall is a tribute to the miner’s women (wifes, daughters, sisters, girlfriends…) who are in Asturias, León and Teruel, fighting for their labor rights while the miners walked 500 km to Madrid during the “Marcha negra” strike.”

With these words, street artist VinZ Feel Free described the wall he recently painted in the Barrio del Carmen in Valencia. The coal miners’ protest shook the beginning of the summer in Spain. Faced with the austerity measures that have marked European economics in the last couple of years, the miners of the northern province of Asturias, took a walk to the capital, Madrid, to protest against the spanish government. It wasn’t a peaceful walk. Clashes with riot police along the road made news around the world. The miners’ despair at the prospect of loosing their jobs and livelihood made them loose fear, and the well known police brutality in such situations found firm resistance from the protestors and those who along the way started to join them.

VinZ Feel Free paid homage to the miners, using the iconography that has become his trademark in pasted posters all over town: naked bodies with colorful painted bird heads signifying purity and freedom – as opposed to frog heads, which the artist usually puts on cops and business men. Not long afterwards, the cops were gone from the mural. Painted over their guilt, and left the bird heads to defend themselves from an invisible attacker. (see image at the bottom after portuguese translation).

As my own homage to the artist and the cause, and with the intent of perpetuating a defaced work of street art with political comment that I find valuable, I chose VinZ’s free bird head women to illustrate my most recent project on Feminist Art – dasVagabundas, a visual archive of women, art, memory and revolt, with citations and links. From the ape heads of the Guerrilla Girls, to the colorful balaclavas of Pussy Riot, the bird heads of all free women now also stand as one more icon of female resistance.

Four years ago, I left London. I had lived there for the previous four years. First in Brixton and then in Hackney. I met the people who really mattered in the city at the time I was there. Brian Haw, tireless protestor against sanctions and war in Afghanistan and Iraq, way before september 11. I met some members of Jean Charles Menezes‘ family, the Brazilian murdered by the Met Police, who somehow, in spite of being on surveillance, confused him with one of the suicide bombers whose attempt to explode the tube had failed the previous day. I grew disgusted with the city and the control and surveillance and highly patronizing authority figures, but I certainly met dozens of interesting people. Squatters, hackers, migrants and artivists. People that mattered, people concerned with the state of things and who try to make a difference. Obstructed by media constructed stereotypes that show them as troublemakers, they are resilient. In the end, look at our bankers and politicians. Who are the troublemakers? Who are the terrorists?

Serious people with serious principles, serious ethics and high ideals matter. People combining art, performance and activism are necessary.

Today, four years later from down here in the tropics, I think of them, those who are still there, seeing Hackney smashed under the speculation of the house market because of the f****** olympics. While mainstream media focuses on the event that starts tomorrow, the Space Hijackers have taken upon themselves the responsibility of being the Official Protestors of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Space Hijackers action in Brick Lane, East London

The Space Hijackers have been hijacking spaces since 1999 and they did start by partying as if it was 1999 with the Circle Line Party, an event on that London tube line, with loud music, light and dancing … at least while in the tunnel. As the train got to the station, everybody got back to their seats in silence. Then they moved on to hijack other spaces. Among many actions, were a cricket game, between two opposing anarchist and capitalist teams, in the heart of London’s financial district. There was also a party, cop uniform mandatory, in front of the Bank of England. And they even took their DSEi tank for a spin, during the G-20 talks.

Activist group The Space Hijackers have announced their aquisition of a tank which they intend to use as a vehicle for protest at the Defence Systems and Equipment International arms fair which opens in London’s EXEL centre on 11th Sept they are keeping they will then be selling it to the highest bidder and will take no responsibility for how it is used after they sell it which is how they claim arms dealers opperate for more phone interview contact Robin Grizly Pioneer 0787 606 7703

“You’re on your own.” That’s how Lilith Adler’s statement regarding this image ends. The man in the picture, may be the handsome charming prince that every woman is said to be on the look out for, but he symbolizes how power and sex continue to reflect male dominance in society. It’s present in the image that shocked the conservative art world – because it is not the body of a woman we came accustomed to gaze at in western art – and it is certainly present in the text accompanying the image. Because, what non-masochistic woman unwilling to submit, either haven’t heard that or something like it?

Lilith Adler died before she completed 40 years old. A young woman, a feminist, whose work was incredibly poignant in addressing the issue of gender power relations. She was only 10 years old when Linda Nochlin published her (in)famous essay “Why HaveThere Been No Great Women Artists?” addressing historical male dominance in the art world and market. A text that not only inspired countless women artists to address the question of male dominance in all areas, but also set art historians on a quest for female artists neglected by the history of art throughout centuries. Research far from being completed and male dominance far from being erased. You see it in attitudes, you still see it in the art world – including street art world, the street being symbolically male, while women still belong in the domesticity of the home. And mostly you see it in language. And I had a good hint at that very recently.

Less than two weeks ago, I nearly got attacked by a man, who thought it was very rude of me to push him away hard, after he tried to corner me and grab me by the waist. Since I didn’t act with submission like a good girl – or should I say, since I reacted like a woman – I immediately became a thin ugly bitch who was, and I quote, treating him like a dog. As if I treated animals like they were retarded misogynists! I had to tell two other guys before, to remove their hands off me when they approached me thinking they have the right to do so, or that it is charming and irresistible to a woman, that sort of closeness from a total stranger. One of them apologized – good, he might be learning something – the other called me rude. But the third one won the prize of the year (so far) for the “prick looking to straighten me out”. And he might have tried to do so, if I wasn’t immediately surrounded by friends and bar security. I’m thin, he was obese. I’m weaker, he’s stronger.

Documentary “Weapon of War: Confessions of Rape in Congo”, 2009 Documentário “Arma de Guerra: Confissões de Estupro no Congo”, 2009

Absurd. I reacted as I should. As every woman should. Male friends agree. What an idiot that guy. They tell me that. But then I hear the same friends say things like: such and such institutions “opened the legs” to such and such. Language. Opening the legs, an expression in Portuguese, which indicates submission by such to such. You can use it in any sense but the expression is sexually rooted, because, who opens her legs? Men or women?

Language. It is not an accident that “conquest” and “adventure” are expressions used to describe what was in fact western colonization of the world – or a sex affair. Male dominance of land and women. Because women came with the territory. And if I say “fuck that”, ” screw it”, “up yours”, I will be using other expressions, which clearly indicate sexual male dominance and came into common vocabulary to describe something we despise, give no value to and it’s under our power to dominate. Language.

Being a woman who will not be straightened out, who prefers casual relations with male friends who I can respect, who’s not afraid to stroll around town at early hours of the morning, I have to constantly face attitudes that, even if unsaid, denote that I am one of the following:

1) A bitch (language: female dog);

2) Feminazi (language: male’s submission to women because in their ignorance feminism is the opposite of misogyny);

3) Crazy (language: women should not walk by themselves at night, that being the crime rather than a possible assault or rape);

4) Lesbian (language: a women not interested in a particular man, according to that same man).

I must say I took some pleasure in watching Lisbeth’s vendetta on the prick who raped her, in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, adapted from Stieg Larsson‘s first volume of the Millenium series, Men Who Hate Woman (ironically translated to Portuguese as Men Who Don’t Love Women. Language: Hate being different from Not To Love). But I don’t want to focus on a V for Vendetta. I prefer V for Vagina.

So I was interested in learning about V-Day, an initiative by Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologuesand a great promoter of the City of Joy a community of women in Kongo where rape victims have been able to heal from gender violence in that country. The Campaign “One Billion Rising” launched by the writer, is a call for women, and men who love them, to dance together wherever they are, until the violence stops. The date has been set to Feb. 14, 2013. Feminism asks for equality and respect between genders. And while women feel threatened when they go for a stroll at any hour of the day or night Feminism is a concept that needs to exist.

And maybe some day, we can call our V, a V for Victory, when we are no longer alone like Lilith Adler reminded us.

Remember Station Beach? Two years on and it’s still attracting the crowds. And just before the Feast of the Flesh, it is now site for independent Carnival street blocks to practice the beats and tunes to parade around the city in less than two weeks. And in what city in the world, where a gathering of hundreds happens on a Saturday while the drums beat on and the beer rolls down, one citizen – at least one citizen – doesn’t get naked?

By the time I got there, it was over. Two men had been arrested for “indecent exposure” – but not to the hot sun. And a crowd had been peppered sprayed for chanting the lyrics of a samba about police brutality – relevant right? – while trying to prevent the arrest of their naked buddies. Meanwhile, the police, who indecently exposes massive batons and guns and chemical sprays on your face, all around town and on a daily basis, can decently grab a peaceful naked man with violence, where there has been no complaint, and spray citizens as they please with harmful chemicals. Isn’t that confusing?

And isn’t it funny that Brazil – famous for sensual mulattas and sex tourism, miniscule bikinis and bikini waxing, big buts shaking frenetically to please the masters and sell the country to tourists – has such a strict code of morality? Can’t you just come up to a man and gently tell him to put on his shorts because some people might be offended? Do you need an S&M situation where big men in uniform can just handcuff a naked person and force them into a car? And what sort of morality do you have when you are empowered to put on a glove and check anyone’s private parts in public, including minors, looking for whatever, as it is seen in the streets of Brazil everyday?

There’s this indecent exposure of agents of the law around town that offends me at a personal level. Can we outlaw them please?

The Egyptian Revolution took place one year ago and was followed by an Arab spring of uprisings. Among the thousands who took to the streets were of course the young artists – a crowd by the way frequently found in these sorts of events, be it in Egypt or anywhere in the world. And among this young artists was one of the first martyrs of Tahrir Square, Ahmed Basiony, mentioned on this blog nearly a year ago. The violence of the early days of the revolution and the death of friend, catalyzed an independent street art movement, the Young Artist’s Coalition, who spent 2011 celebrating the end of Mubarak’s 30 year reign, by filling the streets of Cairo with the colors of revolutionary graffiti. They came to the spotlight last July when they painted on Tahrir Square, the space signifying their revolution where so much happened and so many were butchered by their nation’s brutal riot police.They opened the debate around the institutional uses given to the public space, questioning them, in parallel to the much larger questioning of public institutions that was taking place around the Middle East.

And now, one year on, the revolution is far from over. Cairo fell once more in the hands of bureaucrats, and the police can once again simply grab a woman protestor of her clothes, stripping her and kicking her in the chest. Which shows that tirany still reigns, and therefore so does resistance. The Young Artist Coalition is made of people who lived their entire lives under the tirany of the Mubarak regime and for whom art became inseparable from resistance. How to erase the last 30 years of history that have been their own entire lives? And what about the last 60 years? 90 years?

Come 2012 and with the end of the world fast approaching it was time to change the looks on this blog. I also told myself I would begin writing here weekly, but somehow I’ve given myself more than half of the month to start on that promise. It took a real shook up, actually a shock to the system to make me jump on the keyboard. And it came once more from the north, from the draconian laws that idiotic North American bureaucrats are preparing in regards to the copyright and the internet. I’m talking about SOPA and PIPA, which will require of North American websites – Google, Facebook, WordPress, Wikipedia, you name it – that they police the content users post on the internet. So, I was happy with the blackout these sites performed last wednesday in protest of the proposed law, but will that be enough, or in 2012 this blog will have to be moved to an Icelander host?

What this legal stupidity would do for instance is that, for example, Wikipedia, served from the United States, would not be permitted to define for us what is Pirate Bay, a site served from outside the United States, with content in direct infrigement of north american copyright laws. Wikipedia, as WordPress, Google, all the big and small ones, have positioned themselves against SOPA and PIPA, but if the law passes there is not much to do and the North American internet will become as censored as the Chinese, with users hitting blocked content after blocked content.

Months ago, as I was trying to log in to my blog – this blog – I just couldn’t. Instead I had a message to contact wordpress. My blog had been blocked for infrigement, after being denounced by someone in Oregon. And so WordPress, based in California, was forced by law to shut me up. What did I do? I posted a beautful picture of the amazon river on a post about indigenous perils and survival in the jungle. Any picture posted here, when clicked, will take you to the website where I got it from. I don’t make any money of it, I don’t profit from my blog, I write for pure joy on topics I’m passionate about and I choose relevant illustrations for my content, from anywhere I can find it, crediting the site/artist or whatever. So, in my mind the kind of mentality that would go against that, is the mentality that puts profit before an important message about humanity and survival. And ironically it is that same mind, rooted on profit, that enslaves the indigenous and destroys their livelihood.

I share content. I don’t share the commercial capitalist possessive attitude that enrages people who feel it’s THEIR picture and NO-ONE can use it. Not even to illustrate a cause, an idea, with absolutely no profit in mind. What the bureaucrats don’t seem to understand is that the world changed, the internet is ours, we don’t like the buy-sell mentality, we want death to capitalism and build a society where we can freely share and inform. Are they so stupid that they don’t see that we will always find ways around their laws? That we are the fit who will survive this crucial point in evolution while them, the bureaucrats are condemed to extinction? Don’t they know we are native to the internet, that we are too many and that this is our land?